The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal reports the Cleveland Indians are "motivated" to make an attempt at Machado. He also reports the Orioles want to act "sooner rather than later" to trade Machado to get a greater return for three months of Machado's services instead of two.

Machado will become a free agent at the end of the 2018 season. MLB's non-waiver trade deadline is July 31.

Machado is posting career highs in batting average (.311), on base percentage (.378), slugging percentage (.565) and OPS+ (160).

The third overall pick in the 2010 draft did not take long to make it to the big-league level, as he appeared in 51 games with the Orioles in 2012. He became an All-Star and finished 9th in MVP voting in 2013.

He also made the American League All-Star team in 2015 and 2016. Machado has narrowly led AL shortstop All-Star voting this year for the last three weeks.

Machado took over the shortstop position this year after previously playing third base and has seen his career defensive WAR drop from 11.3 to 9.8.

In 2015, Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette said the Orioles would like to extend the then third baseman, but had "more urgent things to look at."

Duquette then said the club previously attempted to extend Machado.

Since then, the Orioles signed first baseman Chris Davis to a seven-year, $161 million deal in 2016 and DH Mark Trumbo to a three-year, $37.5 million deal in 2017 in an attempt to keep part of its longball-hitting lineup together.

The Orioles also signed free agent starting pitchers Andrew Cashner and Alex Cobb to two and four-year deals before the start of this season to try and piece together an improved pitching unit from last year.

Cashner's deal is worth $16 million and Cobb's deal is worth $57 million.

Baltimore's starting pitching ERA was 5.70 last season, the highest in MLB.

Currently, the Orioles are 26th in starting pitching ERA (5.16).

Baltimore lost its 60th game of the season Tuesday to the Philadelphia Phillies, falling 32.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox in the AL East.

The Orioles were 32 games out of first place entering July. In the 1970’s, in years that they didn’t finish first, they finished a total of 31 games out of first place. #quirkjians